Zimbabwean state prosecutors on Tuesday asked a Mutare magistrate's court to indict the former white farmer and current Senate member Roy Bennett on a weapons charge brought in February, aiming to escalate his case to the High Court and remand him in custody.

Bennett, also treasurer-general of the Movement for Democratic Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and deputy agriculture minister designate, faces charges that he possessed weapons for banditry, sabotage, insurgency and terrorism.

Bennett was appearing before Mutare Magistrate Lucy Mungwari, when the prosecutors made their case for indictment on charges of a different order of gravity.